Afternoon Magic
by Shmellow
Summary: A young pair of mages, one shy and calm and the other social and energetic, decide that they want to use magic like their families. Oneshot, AzelXTiltyu.


**Obliatory Author's Note: Um. Hi, I guess. I… just felt like writing about Azel and Tiltyu. I often feel like writing about Tiltyu and Azel, actually. Ah, well. Enjoy, I suppose. **

The land of Velthomer was usually a very quiet, calm place. But every so often, a certain young Thunder Mage would come tearing along the plain…

"HEELLLLOOOOO!" cried the little girl. "Azel?! Where in the name of Tordo are you?" She stopped in front of a small castle.

A little, red haired boy came running out of the castle, cloak streaming behind him.

"Tiltyu," he half-whispered, "Alvis said not to yell so loudly. You're really disturbing his reading."

"Aw, your half-brother's no fun. But anyway, check _this _out!" Tiltyu held up a Thunder tome proudly. "Dad gave it to me! He said I could use it 'cause I have Tordo blood! And—"

Her eyes lit up. "Wait a minute! Azel! You've got Fala blood, right?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess," said Azel, nervous about what Tiltyu was thinking of doing.

"Right! And since Fala used fire magic, I bet YOU can use it too!" She exclaimed.

"I-I don't think so," Azel started, before Tiltyu started to sprint towards the castle. "Tiltyu? Where are you going?" he called.

"I'm gonna go get some fire magic from Alvis! I bet he has plenty in there!" she yelled, almost within arm's reach of the castle.

"Ah! Wait, Tiltyu! Don't bother—" Tiltyu, had, of course, already entered the castle. Azel ran after her.

The two small children wove through the hallways, Tiltyu trying to reach Alvis, and Azel trying to stop her. The guards posted at random intervals throughout the castle hardly noticed them and did nothing to stop their romping.

"Glad to know we have such great security here," Azel muttered under his breath.

After running up three staircases and about a mile of hallways, Tiltyu finally reached the room where Alvis was sitting quietly and reading. She slowed to a walk and entered.

Alvis looked up from his book. "Yes?" he asked sharply and without a smile, in a tone of voice that made even Tiltyu hesitate. "What do you need, Daughter of Leptor?"

Tiltyu faltered a bit, but then stepped forward and bowed quickly. "I'm sorry for disturbing you, Lord Alvis, but I wanted to know if you had a Fire tome for Azel to use."

Alvis's stern look softened quickly, startling Tiltyu once again. "So he's interested in learning some magic, is he? I think—" 

Azel suddenly ran into the room. "BrotherI'msorrywedisturbedyouandwe'llgobackoutsideand--"

"Azel," Alvis said sharply. Tiltyu was a bit more used to his strict manner by now.

"Sorry… Sorry… I'm sorry…" Azel kept whispering, perhaps to himself.

"Azel, Tiltyu tells me you're interested in learning about fire magic. Is that correct?" asked Alvis.

Azel looked up. "I… um, yes, brother. I would like to learn about fire magic. If I'm a descendant of Fala, I think… I think I should. I-if that's all right with you, of course!" he said.

Alvis looked pleased. Placing the book he was reading on a conveniently located table, he walked over to a bookshelf and looked around. His eyes stopped at the third shelf from the bottom, filled with a line of identical books with a flame symbol on the binding. Gingerly pulling one out, Alvis handed it to Azel.

"All right, Azel. Here's a Fire Tome. Just read the words on the first page to cast a spell. The words will disappear after one spell on that page, but that's norm—" Alvis looked at the spot the children were a second before. He walked to the doorway and looked to the right.

"Thank you, Alvis!" called Azel, who was being dragged down the hallway by Tiltyu.

Alvis smiled slightly, and continued to read his book.

Outside the castle, Tiltyu read her tome along with Azel. "All righty," she said. "I think we should try out some of this magic!"

Azel looked shocked. "You mean… actually cast the magic?" he asked.

"Well, duh!" Tiltyu exclaimed. "Why d'ya think my dad and Alvis even gave us these books? To look at?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess so," said Azel. "Besides, why would we use it now?"

"For practice, of course! Who knows how useful it could be? We could use it to protect our loved ones in the heat of a raging battle… heck, we could use it to find our loved ones…" Tiltyu sighed dreamily.

"No… just, no." Said Azel, interrupting her fantasy. "Besides, what if we accidentally burned something down? I mean, look around!" he exclaimed, gesturing to the trees scattered among the landscape. "It'd be really bad if we started a forest fire!"

"Re-LAX, would ya?" said Tiltu, walking towards a grassless and treeless splotch of dirt on the ground. She bent down and drew an "X" in the ground. "See? Nothing to catch fire here. Now, stand back, I want to try this."

Before Azel could protest further, Tiltyu read the incantations on the page. Her eyes glinting and her face lighting up, she pointed her arm at the X drawn in the dirt.

A bright flash lit the air, momentarily blinding Azel. Rubbing his eyes, he looked down at the X that Tiltyu had aimed her thunder at. The ground was singed, and there were scorch marks surrounding the spot she hit.

"Whew! What a rush!" exclaimed Tiltyu. She fell down, breathless.

"Are you okay?" asked Azel, bending over her. 

"Yeah, yeah," she said, sitting up and narrowly avoiding hitting heads with Azel. "It just, well, it's pretty exciting. It fills ya up with adrenaline, I'll tell you that." She looked at Azel, smiling mischievously. "Now it's _your _turn."

"I don't think I should," Azel started.

"Just read the spell!" yelled Tiltyu, impatiently.

"A-All right," said Azel, meekly.

Reading the fairly short but complicated spell, Azel felt energy begin to well up inside of him. The energy surged through his body and expelled itself through his arm, which he almost forgot to aim at the X Tiltyu had drawn. Azel closed his eyes, afraid of the effects the magic would take. A burst of flame shot out of his fingertips, singing the ground it hit. Opening his eyes, he saw tendrils of smoke protruding from the ashes of what used to be grass surrounding the splotch of dirt.

Azel attempted to take a step forward, but found he couldn't balance, and he fell to the ground in a heap.

"Ha!" laughed Tiltyu. "Told ya it takes a lot out of you. It'd be pretty pointless to run into battle like this, I guess."

"I'm pretty sure it'll get better with practice," said Azel, recovering from his brief bout of magic induced fatigue. "But… maybe we should rest for today."

"Well, Lex lives around here, right?" asked Tiltyu. "We could go show him our awesome new magic skills!"

"Yeah, I'm sure he'd _love _to see that. But… we haven't seen each other in a while, so we might as well go see him now," said Azel.

Tiltyu sprung to her feet, the energy she suddenly acquired startling Azel. "Race ya to Dozel!"

"Tiltyu, wait! It's not THAT CLO—" Azel stopped mid-sentence and sighed. "All right," he said. "But I'm not about to lose!"

**Word. I hope you enjoyed the past three-six minutes you spent reading this fanficton. In fact… Don't you want to spend another three-six minutes reviewing it? You KNOW you do!**


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